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Mara Botonis has spent time in hundreds of communities with thousands of families while working in over 30 states during her 29-year career in healthcare in the United States. She has consulted for clients and has direct experience in all areas of the seniors housing business: Continuing Care Retirement Campus (CCRC), Independent/ Retirement Living (IL), Assisted Living (AL), Memory Care…

Mara Botonis has spent time in hundreds of communities with thousands of families while working in over 30 states during her 29-year career in healthcare in the United States. She has consulted for clients and has direct experience in all areas of the seniors housing business: Continuing Care Retirement Campus (CCRC), Independent/ Retirement Living (IL), Assisted Living (AL), Memory Care (MC), Skilled Nursing (SNF), Home Health Care (HH), Hospice and Hospital/Acute Care settings.

Articles by Mara Botonis

As an actor, Daniel Roebuck's got one of those faces. The kind of face that registers instant familiarity and a sense of affinity, even if you are one of the few fans that can’t immediately place just exactly where you've seen him before. Roebuck was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and graduated from…

I am lucky enough to live near enough to the Atlantic ocean that each day as I look our window I see its waters touch the shore. Sometimes the tides come onshore with the tender caress of a lover, sometimes with all of the violence and energy of the winds that brought these waters from around the world…

The decision to arrange for others to participate in meeting your loved one’s daily care needs is never an easy one. By and large the most common concern I’ve heard from families who were considering facility placement, or the hiring of in-home primary caregivers, may surprise you. Often the primary…

Each person’s experience with Alzheimer’s or Dementia is unique to them. Symptoms may change frequently and progress differently with each person and can be affected by many factors. This tool was designed to help the family caregiver track the type and frequency of the symptoms your loved one is…

This Biography can help you capture all of the preferences that make your loved one unique and that you are now responsible for honoring and protecting because they can no longer do so. Doing things the way they always have, or prefer, can help increase cooperation, create positive outcomes and decrease…

Each person with the Alzheimer’s disease is unique. The way the disease progresses, the nature of their symptoms, the areas of strength and deficit, are all completely different at each stage of the disease and for each person. There are many resources out there that identify the stages of Alzheimer’s.…

“It’s an honor and a privilege.” Those are the words I shared with my mother during a phone call when I learned that she and my step-dad were moving in with my grandparents and would help to care for my grandfather, who was just starting to show signs of Alzheimer’s. During that talk, several…

Our loved one with dementia has already been coping with the expert level slope while we weren’t looking. Go there with them, it's okay to fall. One of my most cherished mentors and dear friend (Wendy) is a dynamo of a nurse, leader, coach, trainer, mom, wife and innovator in the field of senior housing.…

She had to look up where he was going on a map. She watched the news each night simultaneously hoping for and afraid of any updates on the war effort she might learn about. She breathlessly opened the mailbox each day praying for a letter from him and word that he was OK. She reassured their children…

A daughter shares that her mother has to leave her current care community. The daughter quickly needs to find an affordable alternative that is decent and well-run. A woman reveals that she misses being intimate with her husband since he started having more pronounced symptoms of dementia. A husband…

"Don’t keep telling me about the latest miracle cure" among this great list of 9 ways to comfort caregivers. Think of it as a mantra, a poem, a serenity prayer. Send to your friends. They want to help ... they just don't know how. Everyone is babystepping in this growing silver tsunami. Even for those…

Do you know a silent hero this November? Someone who cares for a husband or wife, a mom or dad, a grandparent, aunt or uncle, living with Alzheimer's or dementia, whether FTD, or vascular? Day and night; night and day; hours and hours usually without a break. Someone who "sets aside the hourly heartbreak…

Unless you share everything. Waiting rooms in doctor’s offices across North America are filled with family caregivers who ran a marathon to get their loved one to the appointment. The cleaning, dressing, feeding; the coaxing into the car; making it on time, or at least not late enough that the office…

Eight essential financial resources and strategies to help you when the going gets rough: This informational series Financial Solutions, from my book When Caring Takes Courage, is designed to acquaint you with a few of the methods of paying for home or facility-based care. With healthcare costs continuing…

Thank you for loving me enough to take care of me. Thank you for the times your meal is cold, because you make mine first. Thank you for the times you wake up at night to check that I am safely sleeping. Thank you for the times you worry about me, pray for me, want the best for me. Thank you for the…